Universal Basic Income is a shortcut to hyperinflation

As more job skills are transferred to technology and parts of jobs in part or in whole get taken over by technology, some have pondered how those without high-level skills will make a living.

Some have suggested universal basic income as an option: regular money from the government to the citizens on a regular basis.

Let's think about what would happen with this.

For those working a job or two making ends meet with $10-15 an hour, if income starts appearing with no work or effort at all, then one is going to stop working. Why work if you can meet your needs without working?

The problem is when everyone notices this happening. If suddenly no one thinks they need to work to meet their basic needs, then no one does. In the name of compensating for employer-driven loss of jobs, universal basic income would rapidly accelerate the employee-driven loss of jobs.

If suddenly no one is working to stock the grocery store, guess what has to happen. To entice people back to the workplace, employers now must suddenly pay people a whole lot more than they have coming in for free to motivate them. In order to meet those expenses, prices would have to shoot through the roof.

If this were to happen in the context of a debt-facilitated economy, hyperinflation would take hold in a hurry. Universal basic income would become universal basic poverty.

This is the worst kind of voting yourself money from the treasury.


“If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

“you have the poor with you always” (Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7; John 12:8).